Lifeboat Foundation

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla — An unmanned U.S. military space plane landed early Saturday after spending a record 908 days in orbit for its sixth mission and conducting science experiments.

The solar-powered vehicle, which looks like a miniature space shuttle, landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Its previous mission lasted 780 days.

Continue reading “Unmanned, solar-powered US space plane back after 908 days” »

A Tohoku University researcher has increased the performance of a high-power electrodeless plasma thruster, moving us one step closer to deeper explorations into space.

Innovations in terrestrial transportation technologies, such as cars, trains, and aircraft, have driven historical technologies and industries so far; now, a similar breakthrough is occurring in space thanks to electric propulsion technology.

Electric propulsion is a technique utilizing electromagnetic fields to accelerate a propellant and to generate thrust that propels a spacecraft. Space agencies have pioneered electric propulsion technology as the future of space exploration.

Today we return to the Fermi Paradox to contemplate the notion of civilizations which neither expand outwards to colonize the galaxy nor go extinct, but exist as long-term, high-tech civilizations just on their own planet or solar system. To discuss the possible motives and reasoning we will look at the many arguments raised for and against space exploration.

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Hyderabad-based private space startup, Skyroot Aerospace, is set to launch its, and India’s first private rocket between November 12 and 16 from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Sriharikota launchpad. The rocket, named Vikram-S, will be the first space launch vehicle manufactured and operated entirely by a private company in the country — making this the first launch of its kind since the union government opened up the space sector for private industry participation in June 2020.

The final date of the launch mission will be confirmed depending on the prevalent weather conditions during the mentioned launch window. Naga Bharath Daka, chief operating officer of Skyroot, confirmed in a statement that the launch mission will be a suborbital spaceflight, and will carry three customer payloads to the intended orbit.

Typically, a suborbital spaceflight refers to a height of around 100km from the Earth surface, and is done at a lower altitude than an orbital flight, which reaches at least a low-Earth orbit — between around 200km to 2,000km from Earth.

Elon feels that Starship is moving too slow so he is now throwing a lot more resources at it.

While Elon Musk earns daily headlines over changes at Twitter, a significant reorganization is underway at his space company’s Texas launch facility.

SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell and vice president Mark Juncosa – two of the most influential executives at the company aside from Musk himself – are now overseeing the facility and operations of the company’s Starbase location, people familiar with the situation told CNBC.

Continue reading “SpaceX shakes up Starship leadership in Texas as push for the rocket’s next milestone intensifies” »

The test has now validated the startup’s patented design and manufacturing methodology.

A space-tech startup headquartered in Chennai, India, successfully test-fired the world’s single-piece 3D-printed engine.

Elen11/iStock.

Continue reading “Indian space tech company successfully test-fires world’s first single-piece 3D-rocket engine” »

China gave up on their SLS clone, deciding that building a giant rocket that blows up with every mission is a bad idea. Maybe Congress, who is forcing NASA to build the SLS, could learn from this.

When China started to get serious about sending its astronauts to the Moon in the middle of the last decade, the country’s senior rocket scientists began to plan a large booster to do the job.

In 2016 the country’s state-owned rocket developer, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, began designing the “Long March 9” rocket. It looked more or less like the large heavy lifter NASA was designing at the time, the Space Launch System. Like NASA’s large rocket, the Long March 9 had a core stage and boosters and was intended to be fully expendable.

Continue reading “China is scrapping plans for an SLS-like rocket in favor of reusable booster” »

An in-depth survey of the various technologies for spaceship propulsion, both from those we can expect to see in a few years and those at the edge of theoretical science. We’ll break them down to basics and familiarize ourselves with the concepts.
Note: I made a rather large math error about the Force per Power the EmDrive exerts at 32:10, initial tentative results for thrust are a good deal higher than I calculated compared to a flashlight.

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Continue reading “The Spaceship Propulsion Compendium” »

Circa 2012 face_with_colon_three

It’s not quite warp drive, but researchers are hot on the trail of building nuclear fusion impulse engines, complete with real-life dilithium crystals.